


The Fatal Order

by euphorbic



Series: Angel of Cities [15]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angels, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Fallen Angels, Gratuitous Imagery, M/M, Metaphysical warfare, Non-Linear Narrative, Original Character(s), Pseudoscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 18:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7279567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphorbic/pseuds/euphorbic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik continues to flicker and fade. Meanwhile, Charles confronts the Alexandrian and forces him to agree to his terms, but there's a complication with the order in which things must be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fatal Order

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to finish this out. This combines two posts on tumblr into one; only a couple more to go to finish.
> 
> Warnings for: a lot of blood, a bit of death, desperation, mourning

Eyes more like hammered copper than ever they were gold, Shaw’s Power, formerly Emma’s, and ever the Alexandrian, rends the marble floor on either side of Charles’ head with scythe-like wings. Sparks and stone shards fly through the blood splattering against the floor from the gaping wound where his right arm used to be.

“ _Give Her To Me!_ ” he froths, blood and saliva foaming at the corners of his mouth. Hot red liquid sprays onto Charles’ face with every percussive aspiration.

Charles is too caught up in serious determination to be terrified, but he can feel the blood dripping down the contours of his face. “Who?”

White shows all around the crazed Power’s eyes. “Emma Frost, you puerile flesh-bag of rot. She’s there. You have her.”

Breathing deeply, Charles nods, the back of his head rubbing over the marble floor with the motion. “Are you sure? That I have her, that is? What if you’re mistaken?”

“You have her,” he whispers softly, his quiet far more terrible than his previous volume. “I know it. Emma flits within your mind and soul. Give her to me and all this madness can end. My madness.”

Balancing his weight on the scythe-like wings, the Alexandrian reaches out with his remaining hand and caresses tapered fingertips gently across Charles’ cheek. Blood trails behind each finger.

Once, little more than a few months ago, Charles had danced with the Alexandrian and he had been as glamorous in his Indian-inspired grandeur as he was powerful. Now there is nothing glamorous or handsome about him; his face is terrible in madness.

“I don’t have her,” Charles says, wondering at his calm while Erik writhes and dissipates on the cold marble floor, “but if I did, I would make a deal with you.”

The Power’s head rolls back and he snarls sounds that feel like physical needles in Charles’ ears. He cries out in pain and lifts his hands to cover them, but the sounds die away and the Power rolls his head this time to look at Charles inquisitively.

“You have Emma Frost’s soul within you. Terms, Charles, son of Brian Xavier. Namest thou thy fucking terms.”

“Your Name,” Charles says and says bravely. “And your Word that Erik won’t dissipate.”

The Power snarls and more flecks of pink spittle mist over Charles’ face. “My Name and the preservation of a Temporal Power? You think me stupid in my entropy, do you, Charles Francis Xavier? Erik will never be bound permanently to a corpus. His manifestation is temporal, temporary, fleeting. Of all the Powers, the Temporal are the least governed by the corporeal. Without a city, without purpose, they cannot function. They are the Hebrews’  _grigori_ by way of Sanchuniathon. A bit of natural force given a portion of sentience. Why do you think he needs you so much? Without a human being, a Temporal Power is nothing but a construct.”

Though his heart shrinks at the Power’s words, Charles raps his knuckles hard against one of the scythe-wings. The metal-like appendage rings discordantly. “Your Name and your Word you will do everything in your power to preserve Erik.”

Ronové nods at this. “Thy terms are accepted and Sealed, Charles Francis Xavier. Much as you will rue the hour in which they were bound.”

Using his remaining hand, Ronové caresses Charles’ face once again, smears blood in abstract patterns under his elegant fingertips. Charles closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep, steadying breath. 

 _Honey,_ Emma says,  _when you get him inside your mind, seal the two of us away. You’ll need to protect yourself from what’s going to happen in here._

 _I know_ , Charles says and quickly kisses her cold, transparent cheek.  _I know._ He steels himself not to think anymore on the paradox of Emma’s existence. To do so will be to fail.

Outside his mind Charles starts to sit up and Ronové kneels up to allow him a seated position between wide-spread knees. Charles reaches up to smear away the blood from his cheek and only succeeds in transferring the arcane letters onto the back of his hand. “I need to enter your mind to give her to you. Or, I can bring you into mine, but first you must help Erik.”

Ronové throws his head back again and his golden eyes roll brightly in his blood-covered face. “I gave you my Word, but also remember that which all Alexandrians know; I never utter lies unless I am quoting another. I am my Word and my Word is me. To break my Word is to invalidate my existence.”

“I know!” Charles shouts and slaps his hands on the bloody floor for emphasis. Halos of spraying blood fly up from his hands only to wither into ribbons of ash that dissipate before they fall back to the slippery tiles. “I know. Help him. Help Erik.”

“And you must know that there is nothing in my power that will help him,” Ronové snorts, red mist issuing from his nose with the exhalation. It too turns black and dissipates like blown ashes.

“No!” Charles shouts, “ _No_!” He pulls himself up and turns to Erik’s fading form. He’s flickering badly, shaking with cold and fever; from his elbows and thighs down only vague outlines remain of his extremities. Even with the vision their Bond grants Charles, he can’t see a single one of Erik’s little, metal minions. The beetles are all gone now. Erik has one eye open, staring at Charles as if his burning glance alone will keep the two of them connected. Kitty sits beside him, slowly petting his side, tears drying on her cheeks.

“But,” Ronové continues, “Bashan can. However, none of her representatives remain so there is Alexandria herself. After I have my Emma, I will attune with Alexandria and she will fill your Temporal Power with enough life to send him back with you.”

“No,” Charles says, and now the tears come, because he knows that this is the wrong order of things. This is the fatal order. “Can’t you attune first?”

“Charles Francis Xavier,” Ronové snarls, “you know what would happen if I were to attune with Alenxandria in my discordant state. I would infect her with my madness, my discord, and this fair city, my beautiful city, would burn as it did in the days of my corpus’ youth. No, I need Emma to soothe me that I might come unto Alexandria in a more stable state.”

“But Erik,” Charles tries again, “might dissipate while you’re in my mind.”

“ _Th_ **e** n _I_ ’ _ll_ h **a** v **e _A_** _l_ **e** x **a** n ** _d_** r _i_ **a** _M_ **a** n _if_ **e** s _t_ _hi_ m **o** n _c_ **e** _m_ **o** r **e**!” Ronové says in a voice that causes Charles’ flesh to crawl. “Now, bring me into your mind. Give me my Emma.”

And, shaking with growing sobs, Charles does.

They stand in the dark and cold, shifting sand beneath their feet. Neither of them can see anything, but Charles senses Ronové’s lack of immediate impatience. He’s willing to trust Charles, knowing that Erik’s life hangs in the balance.

“Emma,” Charles says, “he’s here.”

At his words a cloud of cold fills Charles’ chest. It constricts tightly below his sternum, like butterflies in his stomach, and slowly ascends his throat. He can feel it, fluttering, scrabbling with icy legs, as it rises into the back of his mouth. When Charles opens his mouth, light comes pouring out. In the sudden illumination Charles can see Ronové’s blood seep back through his skin, leaving his face pallid, but unruined.

“My Emma,” he whispers brokenly, golden eyes reflecting the butterfly’s light.

The icy insect walks down Charles’ tongue to the tip. She fans her wings and then alights, flying in her haphazard butterfly way toward Ronové. All around them, the sand glitters. Except Charles knows it isn’t sand at all, but a wasteland of shattered, dead stars.

Emma’s body flows down from the butterfly; she’s in her diamond form, back to Charles, facing Ronové. Except Charles knows it isn’t Emma at all; Emma’s been dead since Shaw slit her throat in the Library. Ronové’ has known it, too, but now he will have his proof.

“I’ll take it from here,” Emma says over her shoulder.

Charles nods and leaves, though, a part of him, a very tiny part, remains; a sacrificial lamb of his and Emma’s construction.

Ronové doesn’t hesitate to embrace her, even one-armed, in the way he rarely did in her life. “Emma, my Emma,” he sobs, pressing his face into the crook of her neck. He takes up a cold handful of diamond hair and pulls back just enough to bring it to his face and inhale. Blood freezes comfortingly in his nose. She’s not diamond at all, but ice. This was never her mutation, but in planes of the mind, he knows she can be whatever she wants.

“Oh, Ronové,” Emma says. She gently pushes him away with her cold hands. “You look terrible.”

He steps back and smiles with bloody teeth. “Shaw is gone; come back to me and I will array thee again like my queen. There will be no jewel that is not thine. Thou shalt rival the sun in the firmament and glitter like the heart of the Milky Way. New constellations will be born and named after thee, yet none shall touch the beauty thou shalt hold.”

“I would love that,” Emma says wistfully. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it lightly. “You know I would love that, but there’s just one problem and you know it. You know the problem, don’t you?”

He pulls her close again, ignores how wet her icy body is becoming, how the melt doesn’t soak his clothes, but simply evaporates.

“You need a body,” Ronové says. “You may have mine. I will lose all the power I have gained in the last thousand years, but I can rebuild it in another thousand. It will be worth the discomfort to have whatever time we have left.”

“Except Emma’s dead,” Emma sighs. Her eyes are melting, but they stay blue. Her hair is melting, but is slowly becoming brown. Her lovely full breasts are melting, but they reveal the flatness of a man’s chest.

Emma is not Emma at all. Emma is Charles.

“Emma is dead and you’ve known it this whole time,” Charles states coldly. “With her dying breath she and I worked together to construct this façade because she knew you might do this.”

“No,” Ronové whispers. His golden eyes widen, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even bleed.

“Yes,” Charles says, voice carrying the strength of the truth. “You are Word and Word is you and you have lied.”

“No,” he whispers again, but this time he does move; he falls to his knees on the field of glittering, beautiful death. He sweeps his arm out and gathers the shattered pieces of stars to his knees. “My Emma. My Emma… I want her.”

“I name thee liar, Ronové, 27th spirit; giver of languages and false tongues.”

Ronové pushes his hand into the glittering stars and hangs his head. His hair, writhing slowly like snakes suddenly stills and then tumbles down from its otherworldly suspension. The black locks fall down around his shoulders and move no more. “You have named me truly, Charles Francis Xavier, son of Brian. I understand now why you wished me to aid your Temporal Power first.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says. “I know you loved her the way I love Erik. But, please, for our sake, don’t prolong this.”

Ronové lifts his head from his pile of sparking death, but under the veil of black hair there’s nothing but blood. In one swift moment, his body sways back and in the next, the landscape is awash in blood from horizon to horizon.

The sacrificial lamb falls down dead as it always knew it would.


End file.
